Distance: My Demons review

After a series of 12 inches on revered dubstep labels like Hotflush, Tectonic and Boka, producer DJ Distance (here credited as simply Distance) joins the heavyweight Planet Mu roster for his debut LP.

Those new to the dubstep genre, which at times suffers for its homogeny, will find all of dubstep's hallmarks in full effect - shedloads of subwoofer-pummelling bass, face-slapping snares and an air of dark menace which brilliantly evokes the inner-city gloom from which the sound first emerged.

Title track My Demons is perhaps the album's strongest moment, layering reverbed arpeggiated guitar with bottomed-out bass and echoed snares that hark back to traditional dub more directly than many of Distance's contemporaries. Elsewhere, though, this is an album that looks to the future more than to the past, continuing the quest for the holy grail of bass sounds (and almost finding it on Cyclops) and dropping in touches of
skin-crawling spookiness with samples from 1998's Dark City (Tuning). Like fellow dubstepper Burial's eponymous debut, the pace is often head-noddingly ponderous, but where that felt organic and rhythmically loose, My Demons has a more synthetic, rigid feel to it.

It may not be a match for the visceral thrills of Vex'd or the club-primed melodies of Skream, or stage the kind of critical breakthrough achieved by Burial, but My Demons is an essential purchase for fans of the genre nonetheless. Currently available on vinyl or to download only.